Current Affairs Auschwitz-Birkenau.......

[Disgruntledgoat]

Silent enim lēgēs inter arma.

For any of you who know Latin or have read classics, this famous saying by Cicero regrettably sums up the wretched horrors of WWII, and war in general.

Like @tsubaki rightly mentions, you've got to understand that the people that the Allgemeine, Totenkopfverbände (camp guard) and Waffen-SS employed.

These were scum bags of the highest order who, in most cases, were able to act in the most depraved manner and were actually able to flourish at doing so.

However, it really isn't as simple as that because the chaotic system of Nazi power, with survival of the fittest, allowed it to happen: bureaucrats and their pens.

People pushed to advance themselves and with such overlapping bureaucracy, the decisions were often made lower down the chain, albeit allowed from above.

One of doing this was by showing how efficiently you could eradicate the supposed 'untermensch', which pretty literally translates as below/inferior people.

"I can kill more jews and gypsies than you...I can kill them quicker than you." Vile hatred was allowed to flourish, and with it came profit which fuelled it further.

In my ol' university days, I studied it in quite a lot of detail and it surprised me how the moderate functionalism argument holds a serious amount of weight.

In layman's terms, Hitler and his cronies obviously hated the Jews and talked about their annihilation, but it really came about over time because of a 'need.'

They showed supposed humanity when they considered the terrible impact it was having on the Einsatzgruppen, so they started to use mobile vans to gas them.

This spread into wider camps, which had previously been used for slave labours, and the chambers and furnaces became ever more efficient.

This culminates with the places like Sobidor and Treblinka which weren't concentration camps - they were pure death camps. Straight there to die, no more.

Add to that, you have the whole aspect of profiteering and turning the factories of death into a place of manpower, money making and medical experiment.

Genuinely, it still baffles me how as a society it can so quickly and easily lead to such horrors, and people today hold similar views or discredit the holocaust.

Don't get me wrong, I am not excusing the soldiers who took part, no at all, however it worries me how propaganda and indoctrination can be so successful.

An oath for a German soldier was binding (for life) and was almost a supernatural entity or a tangible thing for all, so to use that was very, very clever.

A good series to watch about Auschwitz and the Final Solution in general is this early 2000 documentary by the BBC. Unfortunately, the episodes are going soon!

Another saying that stays in my mind when ever thinking of what happened...

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness." - Joseph Conrad.

I have also visited Treblinka.

It was the strangest feeling I have ever had in my life.

I'm an atheist and I dont believe in the supernatural but everything there just radiates evil.

Edit: your Conrad quote sums it up.

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

Silent enim lēgēs inter arma.

For any of you who know Latin or have read classics, this famous saying by Cicero regrettably sums up the wretched horrors of WWII, and war in general.

Like @tsubaki rightly mentions, you've got to understand that the people that the Allgemeine, Totenkopfverbände (camp guard) and Waffen-SS employed.

These were scum bags of the highest order who, in most cases, were able to act in the most depraved manner and were actually able to flourish at doing so.

However, it really isn't as simple as that because the chaotic system of Nazi power, with survival of the fittest, allowed it to happen: bureaucrats and their pens.

People pushed to advance themselves and with such overlapping bureaucracy, the decisions were often made lower down the chain, albeit allowed from above.

One of doing this was by showing how efficiently you could eradicate the supposed 'untermensch', which pretty literally translates as below/inferior people.

"I can kill more jews and gypsies than you...I can kill them quicker than you." Vile hatred was allowed to flourish, and with it came profit which fuelled it further.

In my ol' university days, I studied it in quite a lot of detail and it surprised me how the moderate functionalism argument holds a serious amount of weight.

In layman's terms, Hitler and his cronies obviously hated the Jews and talked about their annihilation, but it really came about over time because of a 'need.'

They showed supposed humanity when they considered the terrible impact it was having on the Einsatzgruppen, so they started to use mobile vans to gas them.

This spread into wider camps, which had previously been used for slave labours, and the chambers and furnaces became ever more efficient.

This culminates with the places like Sobidor and Treblinka which weren't concentration camps - they were pure death camps. Straight there to die, no more.

Add to that, you have the whole aspect of profiteering and turning the factories of death into a place of manpower, money making and medical experiment.

Genuinely, it still baffles me how as a society it can so quickly and easily lead to such horrors, and people today hold similar views or discredit the holocaust.

Don't get me wrong, I am not excusing the soldiers who took part, no at all, however it worries me how propaganda and indoctrination can be so successful.

An oath for a German soldier was binding (for life) and was almost a supernatural entity or a tangible thing for all, so to use that was very, very clever.

A good series to watch about Auschwitz and the Final Solution in general is this early 2000 documentary by the BBC. Unfortunately, the episodes are going soon!

Another saying that stays in my mind when ever thinking of what happened...

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness." - Joseph Conrad.

You can also get the box set of the french made series, Shoah, which is excellent on the banality of evil.

 

[PhilM]

I have also visited Treblinka.

It was the strangest feeling I have ever had in my life.

I'm an atheist and I dont believe in the supernatural but everything there just radiates evil.

Edit: your Conrad quote sums it up.

I've visited Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen, near Berlin, which was one of the earlier trenches of camps; like you said, both cams radiated evil and death.

Some people who've not been may say it's hyperbole, however they were both eerily silent throughout almost as if animals (birds etc.) could feel the horrors.

Personally, I do believe in God and the whole horrors have made me question why it would be allowed.

 

[PhilM]

Interviewer: Could you tell me what you were thinking or feeling when you were shooting?

SS Man: Nothing. I only thought, aim carefully. So that you hit properly. That was my thought."

Interviewer: This was your only thought? During all that time, you had no feelings for the Jewish civilians you shot?

SS Man: No

Interviewer: Why not?

SS Man: Because my hatred towards the Jews is too great. And I admit that my thinking on this are unjust, I admit this, but what I experienced from my earliest youth when I was living on the farm, what the Jews were doing to us, that will never change. That is my unshakable conviction.

Interviewer: What in God's name did the people you shot have to do with those people who supposedly treated you badly at home? They simply belonged to the same group. What else? What else did they have to do with it?

SS Man: Nothing. But to us they were Jews!

That conversation alone highlights how polar opposite reasonable thinking individuals and those indoctrinated are.

 

[tommytowne]

I've visited Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen, near Berlin, which was one of the earlier trenches of camps; like you said, both cams radiated evil and death.

Some people who've not been may say it's hyperbole, however they were both eerily silent throughout almost as if animals (birds etc.) could feel the horrors.

Personally, I do believe in God and the whole horrors have made me question why it would be allowed.

I'm within 30 minutes of Robin Hood Airport which has numerous daily flights to Poland by virtue of a large Polish ex-pat workforce.
Weekend city breaks to Poland are in abundance which gives easy access to trips to Auschwitz. It's a funny thing but I feel I'm almost compelled to visit it to experience the air about the place.
You've made mention of the eerie silence surrounding the place. I've experienced this feeling before when I visited the War Graves at Oosterbeek. This is the place were the soldiers who were killed during the Operation Market Garden at Arnhem are buried. Outside the cemetery is a very busy trunk road which is so noisy you have to raise your voice to be heard. But within the confines of the cemetery you can hear a pin drop whilst seeing the road traffic racing past a mere 50 metres away.

 

[tsubaki]

Silent enim lēgēs inter arma.

For any of you who know Latin or have read classics, this famous saying by Cicero regrettably sums up the wretched horrors of WWII, and war in general.

Like @tsubaki rightly mentions, you've got to understand that the people that the Allgemeine, Totenkopfverbände (camp guard) and Waffen-SS employed.

These were scum bags of the highest order who, in most cases, were able to act in the most depraved manner and were actually able to flourish at doing so.

However, it really isn't as simple as that because the chaotic system of Nazi power, with survival of the fittest, allowed it to happen: bureaucrats and their pens.

People pushed to advance themselves and with such overlapping bureaucracy, the decisions were often made lower down the chain, albeit allowed from above.

One of doing this was by showing how efficiently you could eradicate the supposed 'untermensch', which pretty literally translates as below/inferior people.

"I can kill more jews and gypsies than you...I can kill them quicker than you." Vile hatred was allowed to flourish, and with it came profit which fuelled it further.

In my ol' university days, I studied it in quite a lot of detail and it surprised me how the moderate functionalism argument holds a serious amount of weight.

In layman's terms, Hitler and his cronies obviously hated the Jews and talked about their annihilation, but it really came about over time because of a 'need.'

They showed supposed humanity when they considered the terrible impact it was having on the Einsatzgruppen, so they started to use mobile vans to gas them.

This spread into wider camps, which had previously been used for slave labours, and the chambers and furnaces became ever more efficient.

This culminates with the places like Sobidor and Treblinka which weren't concentration camps - they were pure death camps. Straight there to die, no more.

Add to that, you have the whole aspect of profiteering and turning the factories of death into a place of manpower, money making and medical experiment.

Genuinely, it still baffles me how as a society it can so quickly and easily lead to such horrors, and people today hold similar views or discredit the holocaust.

Don't get me wrong, I am not excusing the soldiers who took part, no at all, however it worries me how propaganda and indoctrination can be so successful.

An oath for a German soldier was binding (for life) and was almost a supernatural entity or a tangible thing for all, so to use that was very, very clever.

A good series to watch about Auschwitz and the Final Solution in general is this early 2000 documentary by the BBC. Unfortunately, the episodes are going soon!

Another saying that stays in my mind when ever thinking of what happened...

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness." - Joseph Conrad.

The bit about bureaucrats especially.

Himmler (in many ways the arch bureaucrat of the regime) was the head of an organization which he clearly didn't understand and whose membership mostly held him in contempt, from the scum of the camps robbing everything in sight to the Waffen-SS, who started the war laughing at him and ended it begging the Army to get rid of him as a commander. He honestly thought his men would carry out these murders with no emotion, no hate even - and when he realised what they were doing, he thought he could crack down on it, in some cases executing SS men for murder whilst running camps where hundreds of thousands of people were being murdered at the state's behest.

 

[PhilM]

The bit about bureaucrats especially.

Himmler (in many ways the arch bureaucrat of the regime) was the head of an organization which he clearly didn't understand and whose membership mostly held him in contempt, from the scum of the camps robbing everything in sight to the Waffen-SS, who started the war laughing at him and ended it begging the Army to get rid of him as a commander. He honestly thought his men would carry out these murders with no emotion, no hate even - and when he realised what they were doing, he thought he could crack down on it, in some cases executing SS men for murder whilst running camps where hundreds of thousands of people were being murdered at the state's behest.

Have a read about some of the actions of the Feldgendarmerie, especially their SS counterpart. They were brutal and would often take part in mass murder.

However, they were quite happy to punish soldiers severely for military crimes, including death, but would themselves be happy to murder, rape and loot. Madness.

 

[JimmyJeffers]

Have a read about some of the actions of the Feldgendarmerie, especially their SS counterpart. They were brutal and would often take part in mass murder.

However, they were quite happy to punish soldiers severely for military crimes, including death, but would themselves be happy to murder, rape and loot. Madness.

I tend to think positively of people and humanity. Horrible to think that given the right conditions, we are capable of such barbarism.
Personally don’t think I could handle a trip to one of the camps.

 

[peteblue]

I'm within 30 minutes of Robin Hood Airport which has numerous daily flights to Poland by virtue of a large Polish ex-pat workforce.
Weekend city breaks to Poland are in abundance which gives easy access to trips to Auschwitz. It's a funny thing but I feel I'm almost compelled to visit it to experience the air about the place.
You've made mention of the eerie silence surrounding the place. I've experienced this feeling before when I visited the War Graves at Oosterbeek. This is the place were the soldiers who were killed during the Operation Market Garden at Arnhem are buried. Outside the cemetery is a very busy trunk road which is so noisy you have to raise your voice to be heard. But within the confines of the cemetery you can hear a pin drop whilst seeing the road traffic racing past a mere 50 metres away.

My wife and I will be visiting Arras and the various battlefields this year, I am both looking forward to it yet I am incredibly apprehensive........

 

[tsubaki]

Have a read about some of the actions of the Feldgendarmerie, especially their SS counterpart. They were brutal and would often take part in mass murder.

However, they were quite happy to punish soldiers severely for military crimes, including death, but would themselves be happy to murder, rape and loot. Madness.

Absolute vermin, them. It’s amazing any of them survived for long after the war because if the Allies weren’t after them for their crimes you’d have thought the Germans would have gone after them.

 

[gonetomorrow]

I wouldn't visit Auschwitz if you paid me. Even Krakow would give me the creeps.
It's clear some people are morbidly fascinated by the whole thing though. It's the same with Hitler. He's never off the box.

 

[wm02]

I've visited Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen, near Berlin, which was one of the earlier trenches of camps; like you said, both cams radiated evil and death.

Some people who've not been may say it's hyperbole, however they were both eerily silent throughout almost as if animals (birds etc.) could feel the horrors.

Personally, I do believe in God and the whole horrors have made me question why it would be allowed.

Do you know about St. Maximilian Kolbe? Personally, his example of sacrifice and love for his fellow man in Auschwitz is profound

 

[Toffee in Jandals]

My parents friends went recently and their phone background is a picture of a picture of dead Jewish people so that's... something.

My brother also recently went and said the amount of people taking selfies, stopping for photo etc changes the whole feel about it.

I visited Dachau, beside Munich, in 2015, and saw some kids (well, teenagers / early 20's) taking photos of each other beside the crematoria laughing and joking around, posing as if they were about to be put in the ovens and pretending to be on fire, etc.

Me and a couple of others who witnessed this called them out on it, they just carried on laughing; thinking it's a big joke and walked away. We told some of the staff who swiftly caught up with them and asked them to leave.

I'm not saying that all young people treat visits to places like this with such disrespect of course, but I believe there is a certain apathy and growing disconnect between the events of WW2 and present-day generations which could partly explain, sadly, how the far-right has gathered so much support, in Europe particularly, over the past decade or so.

 

[GwladysPhil]

I visited Dachau, beside Munich, in 2015, and saw some kids (well, teenagers / early 20's) taking photos of each other beside the crematoria laughing and joking around, posing as if they were about to be put in the ovens and pretending to be on fire, etc.

Me and a couple of others who witnessed this called them out on it, they just carried on laughing; thinking it's a big joke and walked away. We told some of the staff who swiftly caught up with them and asked them to leave.

I'm not saying that all young people treat visits to places like this with such disrespect of course, but I believe there is a certain apathy and growing disconnect between the events of WW2 and present-day generations which could partly explain, sadly, how the far-right has gathered so much support, in Europe particularly, over the past decade or so.

Check out the memorial on instagram, the one in Berlin.

It's just pure influencers posing on them. Quite weird.

 

[davek]

There was a British brigade in the SS. And we shouldn't forget that closer to home it was only the British Communist Party, Labour Party and Independent Labour Party mobilising on the streets that smashed the native nazi thug movement, the British Union of Fascists, otherwise there could have been death camps set up here.

No Tory or businessmen were going to stand in their way.